This type of jewellery struck just the right note in Paris during
the Consulate and the Empire.
According to the Journal des
Dames et des Modes (1805) ”une femme à la mode porte des
camées à sa ceinture, des camées à son collier, un camée sur
chacun de ses bracelets, un camée sur son diadème”.
Such
jewels went well with Josephine’s preference for the simplicity
of the chemise dress à l’antique.
Closely fitting, décolleté,
sleeveless, usually made of embroidered white muslin, or
of lawn with gold and silver threads, it suited her perfectly
though on grand occasions she was obliged to appear in the
more elaborate new style of court dress.
The inventories
of her jewels drawn up in 1804 and after her death in 1814
list numerous examples of her cameo and intaglio jewellery
though do not provide any details, except for the intaglio used
to seal her correspondence which depicts the Three Graces,
after the marble by her favourite modern sculptor, Canova.
However, the quantities recorded represent only a fraction of
what passed through her hands as she never stopped buying,
nor giving jewels away.
The Lloyd Baker tiaras are no exception
in lacking documentary proof.
As some of Josephine’s jewels
must have come up for resale this could be how the parure
came into the possession of British travellers shopping at one
of Josephine’s many jewellers.
installation of these treasures, for she placed them as part of
a refined and elegant domestic setting, created for the private
pleasure of the imperial couple.
How was it that since the British and French were in the midst
of a long war that British travellers could cross the Channel
and visit Paris during the Consulate?
The answer is that a
truce was agreed at Amiens and in 1802 the English took
advantage of what was no more than a brief respite from
the hostilities.
They were curious to see Napoleon’s court,
encounter Talleyrand and other dignitaries, admire the works
of art amassed by D.-V
Denon at the Musée Napoleon, enjoy
the shopping and socialising.
Bertie Greatheed, an observant
Warwickshire landowner was amazed to find Paris “antique
mad”, even at the theatre, where the great actor Talma was
constantly “Etruscanising himself”.
Mrs. Greatheed had her
earrings remodeled in the new style, and like other English
women, updated her wardrobe à “l’antique”’Similarly, the most
fashionable jewellers were besieged by smart travellers who
would have been shown how cameos and intaglios could be
used in gold and enamel settings for whole parures which were
“occupying the place of honour”
Cameos and intaglios were not only on view in the Paris shops
but with other antiquities were on permanent exhibition
at the Bibliothèque Nationale
Her interest in antiquity was fully expressed in her dedication
to the beautification of the interiors and gardens of her country
home, Malmaison, situated half an hour away from Paris.
There
the walls were hung with the beautiful paintings from Pompeii
representing Apollo and the 8 Muses, each glowing with
colour and very well dressed.
A magnificent group of Classical
and Hellenistic Greek vases placed on marble topped tables
depicted the activities of the Olympian gods and scenes from
the daily life of the ancient Greeks.
This magnificent collection
which was given to her by Ferdinand IV, King of Naples and
Sicily inspired her to go on acquiring more antiquities, so that
Malmaison could display a panorama of the arts of the ancient
world.
Yet there was nothing of a museum in Josephine’s
Being an art lover, Bertie
Greatheed was impressed that this formerly royal collection
was now “liberally open to be used by all the world”.
It
was in this cultural atmosphere that these parures were
acquired, triumphantly showing the world how Napoleon had
successfully reinstated Paris as the creative centre for luxury
and fashion, lost during the years of anarchy which followed
the revolution of 1789 and was now the artistic capital of
Europe.
In this task his greatest asset was the incomparable
Josephine, who believed, as John Keats, declared in his Ode to
a Grecian Urn, that “beauty is truth, truth is beauty- that is all
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.
2
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE
THEIR COLLECTION OF JEWELS
BRITISH COLLECTION:
The different strands, the different families, whose
individual collecting taste informs the Lloyd-Baker
collection are unusually diverse.
The earliest is probably
that of John Sharp, Archbishop of York (1645-1714) who
assembled one of the greatest collections of coins and
historical curios towards the end of the 17th century.
His
descendant Dr John Sharp (1723-98) was the patron of
both Gainsborough and Zoffany and his brother Granville’s
literary output was one of the determining factors in
bringing about the abolition of slavery in this country.
In the 19th century Sharp’s son-in-law was the natural
scientist and collector Thomas Lloyd Baker (1777-1841) and
his son Thomas Barwick Lloyd Baker (1807-1886) was an
avid and encyclopedic collector of prints.
How did these magnificent items come into this family’s
collection?
The lack of documentary evidence means that
it must remain a matter of conjecture.
The likeliest source
would appear to be through Catherine Lascelles (c 1840-
1890), the wife of Granville Edwin Lloyd-Baker.
She was the
granddaughter of Henry Lascelles, 2nd Earl of Harewood
and perhaps more relevantly the grand-niece of his elder
brother Edward ‘Beau’ Lascelles (c.1764-1814).
(There was
also a further connection as G.E..Lloyd Baker’s mother and
the Countess of Harewood were sisters).
That ‘Beau’ Lascelles might have acquired such
pieces makes perfect sense.
He was one of the
principal buyers of French works of art (including
the magnificent Sevres now at Harewood House in
Yorkshire)) in the wake of the French Revolution.
In this he was often a competitor with The Prince
Regent and the story goes the latter rushed round
to his townhouse in Hanover Square immediately
on hearing of Lascelles’ death to see what might be
available, such was the significance of the pieces
he had collected.
One of the firms that had useful
connections in Paris and who supplied Lascelles was
Vulliamy & Sons in Pall Mall.
It might well have been
through them that these works of art arrived in this
country.
This must remain speculation but the quality
and provenance of these pieces certainly accords
with the entry in Thomas Raikes’ Journal.
In recalling
Lascelles he wrote ‘ His house though not large was
a museum of curiosities collected with the greatest
of taste and judgement.....His life was luxurious but
short as he died at the age of fifty,’.
It was during the 19th century that these collections came
together at the family’’s seat in Gloucestershire, which to
some extent blurred their individual backgrounds; a situation
which was compounded by the lack of any early inventories.
Indeed the earliest that appears to survive is that taken
shortly before the death of Granville Edwin Lloyd-Baker in
1923.which
included the items offered in this sale
It seems reasonable to suppose that the ‘Parker Pieces’
(lots 1-3) were collected by Archbishop Sharp.
The first
mention of these in the collection appeared in Way’s article
in the Archeological Journal in 1862.
The first mention of
the parures and associated cameos appears in the 1923
inventory.
It was clearly known by then that they had
belonged to the Empress Josephine and that by tradition
the cameos were given to her by her sister-in-law Caroline
Bonaparte.
Sometime later they were lent to the Victoria
and Albert Museum with this provenance and have been
displayed as such ever since.
23